Why Finding a Career as a Student is so Difficult

This article is my two cents on why finding work as a student is so hard.  It’s nothing to do with the economic crisis like people presuppose.  It’s to do with the institutional bureacracy and social constructions in graduate recruitment.

Problems Picking a Career

First of all, there is so much ambiguity in the world for students.  Most of my friends do degrees such as business management and economics which leave the future open to all sorts of jobs. The problem here is that unless you’re focused and motivated on a particular line of work (banking or accountancy for example), you’re going to be stuck knowing which career best suits you.

Problems Applying to Work

In my opinion, the major graduate recruiters treat students like dirt.  In order to apply for a graduate job, you need to spend hours filling out an application form to send off.  If successful, you’re then required to participate in online tests at home – verbal and mathematical, which narrow down a number of potential candidates.

Passing this stage, you’ll receive a phone interview requiring a competency interview.

Finally, after getting through to this stage, at most the bigger graduate recruiters such as Shell, BP or even Investment Banks like RBS, you;ll be invited to an “assessment centre” where you’ll have to deliver presentations, compete in group work exercises, undertake more written tests and normally a face to face interview.

The thing that irritates me most is that even students who get to the final stage – the assessment centre – they’ll still be competing for 1 place out of every 10 students on average.

Conclusion

You can see from this lengthy process why finding employment or even having the will to apply to a major firm is so hard.  Most larger firms outsource their recruitment process to “human resource” centres, who analyse candidates in random locations in London.

There is no personal appraisal or feeling of appreciation from these firms.  The end result is that these firms will receive candidates solely motivated by money – because these are the only sort of students who will spend there time applying under such extreme conditions.

Individuals’ Cvs are also completely ignored in this “recruitment” construction, because the technology and outsource of recruitment merely picks candidates who demonstrate skills that can be picked up by a man with a marker.  On my Cv for example, I have a 2;1 in economics, experiecne working in retail marketing, writing sports for a regional professional magazine, and also own my own poker website focused on poker strategy and MTT Strategy which makes some good money.

I consider this all quite impressive.  It shows entrepuerial trates, business acument, creativity; and not least of all a certain degree of intelligence from my degree.

However the way recruitment works nowadays completely ignores all this.  It is so impresonal nowadays, and your skills are completely undervalued.

Quite frankly, a robot with no cv who is good at these tests will be more succesful in the graduate recruitment process then a candidate who has made millions in business whilst at uni.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/careers-articles/why-finding-a-career-as-a-student-is-so-difficult-1619033.html

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